How can I install protoc on Ubuntu 16.04?

Question

How can I install protoc, the protobuf compiler to generate Java, on Ubuntu 16.04?

score 109 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 14 '20 at 16:06

109

See https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/blob/master/src/README.md:

Prerequesites

$ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake libtool curl make g++ unzip

Installation

From this page, download the protobuf-all-[VERSION].tar.gz.
Extract the contents and change in the directory
./configure
make
make check
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig # refresh shared library cache.

Check if it works

$ protoc --version
libprotoc 3.6.1

edited Jun 14 '20 at 16:06

congusbongus

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answered Sep 06 '18 at 08:27

Martin Thoma

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The same steps works fine for Ubuntu Trusty too. – Binita Bharati Feb 07 '19 at 09:48
11

Also works on Ubuntu 18.04 – Binita Bharati Feb 08 '19 at 10:26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAFK-tN_yaw – Pushkarraj Pujari Apr 15 '19 at 06:45
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step 4: make -jX Where X is number of cores you have, to run in parallel – Omar Jun 12 '19 at 23:48
perfect for Debian 10 – Corrado Jul 10 '19 at 15:21
thank @OmarS. it really used my 4 cores CPU to compile =)) – Thai Tran Apr 13 '20 at 02:47
@MartinThoma `bash: ./configure: No such file or directory` – Bilal Feb 23 '21 at 05:24
@Bilal You probably didn't go into the directory. When you `ls`, can you see the file `configure`? If not, you did something wrong – Martin Thoma Feb 23 '21 at 05:30
@MartinThoma I went inside, I could see `configure.ac`, but I couldn't do `./configure` – Bilal Feb 23 '21 at 05:51
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@Bilal You need to [run autoconf](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/158961/4784). Thanks for the comment! – Martin Thoma Feb 23 '21 at 06:06

score 56 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 19 '19 at 19:40

56

sudo apt install protobuf-compiler

answered Apr 19 '19 at 19:40

John Kugelman

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It results in "Setting up protobuf-compiler (2.6.1-1.3)" - might not be the version everyone wants – y.selivonchyk Nov 01 '19 at 23:11

score 12 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 05 '23 at 08:10

12

If you are a non-C++ user and/or don't want to compile it yourself, the simplest way to install the current version of protoc is to download a pre-built binary from the release page.

https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases

To install, simply place this binary somewhere in your PATH (e.g. /usr/local/bin).

(If you intend to use the included well known types then don't forget to copy the contents of the 'include' directory somewhere as well, for example into /usr/local/include/.)

Example:

wget https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v21.12/protoc-21.12-linux-x86_64.zip
sudo unzip -o protoc-21.12-linux-x86_64.zip -d /usr/local bin/protoc
sudo unzip -o protoc-21.12-linux-x86_64.zip -d /usr/local 'include/*'
# now test:
protoc --version

edited Jan 05 '23 at 08:10

joe

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answered Jul 12 '19 at 11:23

Matt Ke

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You may also need some protos from [Google's Common API](https://github.com/googleapis/api-common-protos/tree/master/google/api) protos. Clone [the repo][4] and move the contents of `google` to `/usr/local/include/`. – Jack Apr 18 '20 at 15:11
protoc is not looking in /usr/local/include for me, at least by default. – Bryan May 08 '20 at 11:07

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 04 '19 at 21:45

You can download binary from the source code and use next commands

sudo rm -rf ./protoc
unzip protoc-3.10.1-linux-x86_64.zip -d protoc
chmod 755 -R protoc
BASE=/usr/local
sudo rm -rf $BASE/include/google/protobuf/
sudo cp protoc/bin/protoc $BASE/bin 
sudo cp -R protoc/include/* $BASE/include

Change your base to /usr/, or /usr/loca/, or anything else in your PATH.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 17 '20 at 11:17

1) Download binary from the url https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases

2) extract and keep the directory at particular location (/user/app/protoc)

3) add the entry in /usr//.bash_profile as export PROTOC_HOME=/user/app/protoc export PATH=$PROTOC_HOME/bin:$PATH

4) refresh file $source /usr/<username>/.bash_profile

Other option is run the following command one by one after downloading the repository :

sudo rm -rf ./protoc

unzip protoc-3.10.1-linux-x86_64.zip -d protoc

chmod 755 -R protoc

BASE=/usr/local

sudo rm -rf $BASE/include/google/protobuf/

sudo cp protoc/bin/protoc $BASE/bin

sudo cp -R protoc/include/* $BASE/include

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 25 '20 at 19:15

Use this if you are having errors like

google/protobuf/descriptor.proto: File not found.
google/protobuf/duration.proto: File not found.
google/protobuf/timestamp.proto: File not found.

PROTOC_ZIP=protoc-3.7.1-linux-x86_64.zip
curl -OL https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/releases/download/v3.7.1/$PROTOC_ZIP
sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local bin/protoc
sudo unzip -o $PROTOC_ZIP -d /usr/local 'include/*'
rm -f $PROTOC_ZIP

This is useful when you are doing generation for go using protoc-gen-go as it requires the base proto files to be present in default include folders

How can I install protoc on Ubuntu 16.04?

6 Answers6

Prerequesites

Installation

Check if it works

Linked